El Salvador becomes the world’s most violent country

World Today

In El Salvador, it’s estimated someone is murdered every hour.

It could become the world’s most violent country if not already. The explosive homicide rate is also prompting a demand in one sector that can barely keep up.

CCTV America’s Frances Kuo has more.

On July 29 last year, a bus driver was buying gas outside El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador.

Suddenly, gang members attacked and shot him to death.

He was the seventh bus driver to be killed in a span of four days. According to official statistics, more than 6,600 people were killed in 2015.

The rate was seven times higher than the year before and 17 times more than the world’s average murder rate.

The spike in deaths means a frantic scramble to bury the victims.

In the mostly Catholic country, the dead are buried shortly after death. And, that has workers in the funeral industry on overtime and overdrive.

Then, there’s the task of personalizing them. It’s a boom in business, not likely to drop.

The country’s president recently declared a state of emergency, ordering cell phone companies to block communication signals inside prisons, where gangs are believed to order murders.

El Salvador also has gotten a 100 million dollar loan from the Central American Bank to combat gang violence.

But these steps provide little reassurance for victims and their families, in a country where violent death, has become a way of life.